on from New York to San Francisco must be
impressed by this contagious character of our dancing habits. But this
means that the movement carries in itself the energy to spread farther
and farther, and to fill the daily life with increased longing for the
ragtime. We are already accustomed to the dance at the afternoon tea;
how long will it take before we are threatened by the dance at the
breakfast coffee?

We have spoken of three mental effects: the license, the eroticism,
and the imitativeness which are stirred up by the dancing movements.
But in the perspective of history we ought not to overlook another
significant trait: the overemphasis on dancing has usually
characterized a period of political reaction, of indifference to
public life, of social stagnation and carelessness. When the volcanoes
were rumbling, the masses were always dancing. At all times when
tyrants wanted to divert the attention of the crowd, they gave the
dances to their people. A nation which dances cannot think, but lives
from hour to hour. The less political maturity, the more happiness
does a national community show in its dancing pleasures. The Spaniards
and the Polish, the Hungarians and the Bohemians, have always been the
great dancers--the Gypsies dance. There is no fear that the New
Yorkers will suddenly stop reading their newspapers and voting at the
primaries; they will not become Spaniards. But an element of this
psychological effect of carelessness and recklessness and stagnation
may influence them after all, and may shade the papers which they
read, and even the primaries at which they do vote.

Yet how one-sided would it be, if we gave attention only to the
dangers which the dance may bring to a nation's mind. The credit
account of the social dance is certainly not insignificant, and
perhaps momentous just for the Americans of to-day. The dance is a
wonderful discharge of stirred up energy; its rhythmic form relieves
the tension of the motor apparatus and produces a feeling of personal
comfort. The power to do this is a valuable asset, when so much
emotional poverty is around us. The dance makes life smooth in the
midst of hardship and drudgery. For the dancer the cup is always
overflowing, even though it may be small. There is an element of
relaxation and of joyfulness in the rhythm of the music and the
twinkling of the feet, which comes as a blessing into the dulness and
monotony of life. The overworked factory girl does not see